In the marital alliance, the cord between woman, man, and animal totem is an umbilical symbol.
The "chicken thighs," as the taxis in the capital were called, sped quickly near the intersection in front of the entrance to the former ORSTOM and its botanical park. It was one of the last green havens in Brazza-Mfoa. The young woman and her elderly guide drove down the lane leading to the main entrance of CERVE (the Center for Studies on Plant Resources). The same music had accompanied them from Pointe-Noire to Maya-Maya airport: a compilation of hits by Les Bantous de la Capitale. A melodic voice sang "Meno nkumbi nzila ya kolela tsiindu."
– Ah, old Congolese rumba, in those days the songs recalled the traditions, sighed the driver.
– Nkumbi is the Gambian rat, the palm rat called "kolo" in the north. What is the hidden meaning?
– My path supports the pounding of human footsteps, like that of the Gambian rat!, he sang.
It confirmed what she had noticed: the seemingly weakest animals, through careful observation, had been idealized by those who had shaped the diversity of Congolese tales and legends. This was true for insects, snails, many plants, and animals. She remembered a statuette she had seen in a Parisian museum titled "Woman with a Feline." The panther, the masculine leopard, reigned as the totemic animal among the animals, from north to south of the country. In the popular imagination, the lord of the forest symbolized power, but in the tales, the clever little antelope often ridiculed it.
– I saw a statuette in Paris where a naked woman is sitting on a leopard, she said, a gift from our ancestors to Savorgnan de Brazza (1852-1905). What could it represent?
He pondered: the dignity and intelligence of women enhanced by the presence, nobility, and beauty of the spotted feline coat.